


Hold steady and hold hard

by josephides



Category: Alpha and Omega - Patricia Briggs
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24811066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephides/pseuds/josephides
Summary: Werewolf culture was a bitch, Anna acknowledged.
Relationships: Bran Cornick/Leah Cornick, Charles Cornick/Anna Latham
Comments: 9
Kudos: 330





	Hold steady and hold hard

Anna thought Bran was touching Leah more.

When they were all in Aspen Creek, they spent time together, as families were wont to do. There was a standing invitation to Sunday dinner, of course, and she would regularly find Bran in her kitchen at breakfast. Charles was frequently up at the main house, working with his father. And Anna, because werewolves were at heart a traditional species, spent time with Leah looking after the pack.

This meant that Anna had plenty of chances over the years to observe Bran and Leah’s interactions, good and bad.

And he was _definitely_ touching Leah more. When he walked past her, he’d touch her waist, her hip. Sometimes he’d rest his hand on the small of her back.

“Your interest in my father’s marriage is both disturbing and worrying,” Charles told her, mildly, when she relayed this interesting piece of news to him.

She readily admitted it. “It’s _literally_ a soap opera,” she claimed to Charles, who groaned. Charles did not like to dwell on his father’s mating – possibly a natural reaction for any son.

“I only have the vaguest sense of what that is but I can tell I wouldn’t like it.”

“Snob,” she teased. Charles had only recently been introduced to Netflix and he claimed he only tolerated it because it meant they would snuggle up on the couch together. She’d seen their recommended viewings adjust however and knew he was watching documentaries on the sly.

Of course, she longed to talk to Leah about it. Her all-but-mother-in-law may no longer hate her so obviously but she was certainly not up for a ‘girly’ chat any time soon. Leah didn’t do girly and she definitely didn’t do gossip.

She might, occasionally, if Anna hadn’t particularly annoyed her that day, answer any questions that she had that were more specific to what Leah considered to be her remit. 

“Could a submissive be an Alpha’s mate?”

Leah tilted her head to the side and gave this some thought. “I’ve never heard of it. I don’t think it would work.”

“Why?”

“Because he needs you to lead when he can’t. Because he needs you to kill when he can’t.” Leah flicked through her magazine for a few more pages. Anna had long believed that Leah’s magazines were a prop, something she used to appear involved when she was plotting something else. She had seen Leah ‘read’ this magazine four times before. “Even if it did happen, she wouldn’t survive him becoming Alpha. Someone would kill her.” Leah shrugged, as if the fictional submissive would deserve this.

Werewolf culture was a bitch, Anna acknowledged. In the years since she had been mated to Charles, she had met many more werewolf women mated to Alphas, from all over the world. To a man – or rather, woman – they were as bloodthirsty, as dangerous, as their husbands. They were intensely loyal and deeply paranoid of all other women as pertained to their sexual interest in their own mate. There was an intense jealousy of human women who could carry children to term, which even Anna understood, in part. They _obeyed_. Sometimes resentfully, sometimes with screaming anger, but they would obey their husbands’ commands and would ensure others did.

Leah wasn’t an exception, Anna had learnt. Leah was the rule.

“What about if Charles wanted to go and form his own pack?” Anna asked, hypothetically.

“Then, you would become more like me,” Leah surmised, flicking through the final pages of her magazine, before tossing it aside. When she looked at Anna, her eyes were her wolf’s. She smiled and Anna’s wolf quaked. “No more questions today.”

*

“Where did she _come_ from?” Anna had asked, once, in the days leading up to her wedding.

Leah had been awful, deliberately making her life difficult. Every simple request Anna had made had been countermanded to how Leah wanted to do things, to how Leah thought things should be done. In an effort to try and understand her, Anna had interrogated her husband about Leah’s past as it had become immediately obvious speaking to Leah was not going to be an option.

“Ah, what’s now Central America.” He sighed. “Around where Mexico is, I think.”

“You _think_?”

“I was very young when he brought her home. I remember she spoke Spanish when she was angry.” His lips quirked which suggested this has been frequently.

Anna knew that old wolves deliberately didn’t look back on their pasts. She imagined their heads like bookshelves, sometimes. To put a new book in, they had to get rid of something – like unlearning the Civil War, for instance.

But Charles, and Leah, weren’t that old, not compared to wolves like Bran and Asil. Charles had told her plenty about his past. “Did she have family? _Does_ she have family? Who Changed her? Was it Bran?”

“Oh, no, Da didn’t Change her. She had been a werewolf for a couple of decades.” Charles began to look a little sheepish, ashamed of himself. “I don’t know the answers to any of your other questions.”

Mexico, Anna thought. _Spanish_ , she thought. “Do you speak Spanish, as well?” Charles, she suspected, spoke many languages.

Charles nodded. “This was Spanish territory. Da taught me. She and Da used to speak it when I was a child.” His brow furrowed. “I don’t remember when they stopped.”

*

Anna helped Leah clear out Sage’s home, which was done with the expected level of banked fury she had come to expect from Leah. With ruthless efficiency, Leah divided Sage’s belongings into ‘burn’ or ‘donate’. The burn pile was significantly larger as Leah didn’t think anything that smelled like Sage should remain in the community.

“Oh my gosh,” Anna said, when she picked up a handful of photographs that had fallen from between the pages of a trashy novel. She had been going through Sage’s bookshelves for books she might want. She didn’t think she was going to be tainted by Sage’s scent but a few them had smelled like Bran, too, which meant they must have come from his library. She thought she’d keep them until she’d handled them enough so that she could return them.

“What?” Leah’s cold blue eyes pierced her from across the room.

“Um. Naked pictures.” Of Sage. And Asil. She blushed furiously and shoved them between the novel and tossed them onto the burn pile. She didn’t think it would be something Asil would like to remember.

“Really,” Leah said, crawling over from where she was shoving clothes into black trash-bags.

“No, Leah, come on. That’s private.” Anna made to snatch the book back but Leah had grabbed it.

For a moment her smile was truly wicked. Then, as she looked through the pictures, it flickered and dimmed entirely. “You’re right,” Leah admitted, putting the photos back.

Afterwards, Anna wondered what Leah had seen when she looked at the photos. She snuck a peek, once again. They weren’t particularly salacious – not given Anna had seen both of them naked before, seeing people naked on a daily basis was something she had come to terms with as a werewolf. She looked at their faces, shaking her head. Sage looked happy, flirty, a little mischievous. And Asil –

Anna sighed. Asil, too. Poor Asil, she thought. Maybe that was what made Leah sad. 

*

For Anna’s next birthday, they went to visit her family for a few days. She escaped this occasion without jewellery but Charles did buy her some new riding boots and a top-of-the-range eReader. When they returned, it was to a special werewolf-family dinner, at a proper restaurant. Bran instructed everyone to dress up which meant, for the first time, Anna was able to wear some of the jewellery Charles had bought her before he had worked out how much it freaked her out.

“You look beautiful,” Charles said, when she tied the silky material of her one truly smart dress at her side and presented herself to him.

Her husband was looking pretty gorgeous himself, Anna thought warmly, demonstrating her appreciation and making them late. It was a thirty-minute drive and they were driving separately – Bran had business elsewhere and so did Leah.

“Where’s Leah?” Anna asked, after she was escorted to the booth and they had said their hellos.

Her father-in-law was seated in prime defensive position, face to the main entrance. Instead of his usual college-boy apparel, he was wearing dark slacks and a pale blue button-down, open at the neck, which brought out the green in his eyes. He looked older and more handsome.

“She’s running a few minutes behind,” he said, kissing her.

Anna slid into the booth, opposite Bran and Charles. She looked around. There were a _lot_ of mirrors. It was fancy and quaintly old-fashioned, the kind of place that flambéed crepes at the table. She was excited. It wasn’t every day that they did this; it made her feel like they were a real family.

They settled in to talking about their trip, Bran at his very Bran best – which meant he wasn’t unduly cryptic and he appeared genuinely interested in her human family, which she knew, at his heart, he wasn’t. Her father-in-law’s cold side had been a surprise to her. He loved Charles, of that she had no doubt, and some of that love spilled over onto her, but if she had been human, he wouldn’t have even allowed that. _Humans die_ , he said to her once, as if that was the end of the matter.

Anna knew when Leah entered the restaurant, firstly because the pack bonds meant that she had an awareness of every member of the Aspen Creek pack, but also because every man and quite a few women in the room lifted their heads to look at her, an effect amplified by all the mirrors.

She turned to look herself.

That the werewolf community was preternaturally pretty had not passed Anna by. The Change returned the human body to its peak of physical fitness, or potential for fitness. It also meant more superficial things - hair became fuller, lusher, shinier. It meant skin became plump, luminous and unlined. Eyes were brighter, lips were redder. Everyone was flushed with health. There was very little call for make-up.

Within Aspen Creek, within pack disputes and moon-called runs and in jeans and T-shirts, Leah was a beautiful woman. Outside, amongst normal society, surrounded by humans in every stage of life, Leah was _sensational_.

“Holy Moly,” Anna sighed as Leah stalked through the restaurant, her hair and the long skirt of her dress flowing behind her.

Leah sat down, adjusting her skirt over her thighs, where the slit had arranged itself not to her liking. The waiter nearest them dropped something. Ignoring this, she simply shook out her napkin to her side with a snap and laid it on her lap. “Sorry I’m late. There was a hold up at the bank.”

“Were they wearing masks?” Bran joked lightly, lifting his finger to get the attention of the waiter so he could order the wine.

Leah frowned at him and adjusted her cutlery slightly, angled herself a little differently, eyes going to the mirrors on the column behind Bran. Checking behind her, Anna thought. The men had taken the seats facing out but Leah was dominant, too. She wouldn’t like her back exposed. “No, it was ridiculous. I counted five cameras in the main room and he wasn’t even wearing a mask. I can only assume he was unstable.”

Anna, who had just taken a sip of her water, nearly choked. “Seriously? You actually _meant_ a hold up. As in, stick-em-up,” Anna said, holding her hands in the air. She looked at her mate and then Bran, attempting to ascertain if she was the only one who had misinterpreted. She thought not. Charles’s eyebrows were raised. Bran was inscrutable, as usual. 

“Did he have a weapon?” Bran asked, fingers of one hand tapping on the table.

“Yes. He kept waving it around.” Leah gestured broadly and then sighed. “I had to give a witness statement. It was really tedious.”

The waiter who had earlier dropped his tray at the flash of Leah’s upper thigh arrived at the table. With what Anna could tell was extreme willpower, he gave Bran and his wine request his full attention. He then picked up the bottle of water on the table and poured Leah a glass. As he did so, Anna watched his eyes skim over Leah’s face, her cleavage, back to her face, and then away again. 

If a man had done that to Anna, Charles would not have been pleased. Heck, _Anna_ would not have been pleased. She would probably have requested a different waiter, at the very least. Or suggested they left. But Bran was just reviewing his menu with apparent fascination, his fingers tap-tap-tapping on the table.

Anna turned to her husband, wide-eyed. _Wow_ , she mouthed at him. He shook his head minutely.

“Happy Birthday, Anna,” Leah said, _sotto voce_. Then, louder, “I’m going to have a steak.”

“To the surprise of no one,” Bran said and started the debate about appetisers.

*

There was a definite _frisson_ between Bran and Leah.

Sometimes Anna would walk into a room, maybe his study or the kitchen and find them there, several feet apart, and feel like she’d interrupted something. She’d always feel embarrassed and quickly escape.

She’d never actually _seen anything_ , though, not even a kiss, which was why when Bran started touching Leah more frequently it seemed so glaringly obvious to her.

Anna got the feeling their sex life was pretty active, though it was the kind of thought she blushed to have.

*

The third time an adoption fell through, Anna cried for several days.

She’d thought, stupidly, that she’d get better at having her hopes dashed when instead it seemed to be the opposite, like someone was pouring salt onto an already open wound and scrubbing at it. It was _relentless_.

It hurt her more that she knew, she could _feel_ , her pain was hurting Charles as well and all he wanted to do was stop it. She had convinced him into adopting, having a child, and sometimes she would feel the flash of resentment that she had done so.

She had taken to going for long walks on her own, when Charles needn’t be faced with her tears, even if he could feel her sadness through the bond.

Leah found her on one such walk and they stood, awkwardly, Anna in her warm hiking gear, Leah in her running clothes. “Hmm,” Leah said, looking at Anna’s face.

Anna sniffed. “Good run?” she said, her voice breaking.

“It _was_.” Leah sighed, heavily. “Come back to the house.”

“I’m actually --“ _Very busy crying_ , “—not done.”

The other woman visibly bared her teeth. “Come back. To. The house.” She imbued her words with the power that she could pull from Bran, even though she knew it had no real effect on Anna.

“Okay, okay, jeez,” Anna said, stomping after her.

They walked in silence back to the main house, Anna resentfully still sniffling, though the irritation at having a very good mope interrupted was beginning to overtake her. They walked in through the back of the house, Leah instructing her to take off her shoes with a glare. “In there,” she told her, afterwards, pointing to the living room.

There followed a very strange evening. Nice, Anna could admit, but strange. Leah made popcorn and lined up a series of terrible horror movies on the TV, the inaccuracies of which made them both snort with laughter. When it was dark, Leah made them mojitos and put pizzas in the oven that they ate off paper plates, like they were at a sleepover.

So thinking, Anna felt bold. Maybe it was the short-lived buzz of the alcohol that Charles assured her was entirely imaginary. “Did you ever want children?”

“I wanted to be a werewolf,” Leah said, eyes not leaving the screen.

Anna was torn but, ultimately, went with her own objective. “So, never?”

“Even if I had, Bran didn’t.” Leah chuckled darkly as the werewolf on screen transformed in a blink of an eye, faster than Charles, even. She leaned back on the couch and folded her hands on her stomach and looked at Anna. “You’ll get your chance.”

Anna picked at the frayed hem of the sweatshirt she was wearing. “It doesn’t feel like it.”

“No, because you’re young and every year still feels like an eternity. I remember. You need to learn to take your time. It will happen.”

This was almost word for word what Bran had said. She felt tears building again. 

Leah sighed, deeply, as if Anna’s emotions were simply too tedious for her. “I’ve got ice-cream. Pecan or cookie dough? Or both.”

Anna managed to get herself under control. This was Leah being _nice_ to her, after all. “Both, please.”

When she returned, it was with two bowls and different bottled sauces tucked under her arms and in the pockets of her sweats. She arranged them on the coffee table and Anna reflected it was _exactly_ like some of the parties she had attended as a teenage girl.

This reflection was compounded when, hours later, she found herself waking on the couch, the menu on the TV scrolling between other movies they might like to watch. She felt too sleepy, too comfortable to really think about moving. Across from her, Leah was also asleep, arms flung out above her, looking young and vulnerable and so unlike her self that Anna smiled.

She closed her eyes and the next time she opened them, it was to see Bran, standing over Leah.

Dreamily, she watched as he leaned down over his mate, stroked a hand down her face so her eyes opened. Leah gave Bran a smile of ineffable tenderness and her lips parted as he bent to kiss her.

Blushing, knowing this was not something either of them would want her to see, Anna squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself to go back to sleep.

*

Anna was in the back yard with Leah when Bran came out with the phone. They had spent the morning gardening and were now lying under a parasol, sipping iced tea and continuing to not speak to each other. She had just come back from a difficult trip with Charles, who had been forced to execute a young werewolf for some egregious acts of violence. It had been a little too close to the bone for Anna and she felt a bit tender.

“Can you speak to Jesus?” Bran said, holding the phone to Leah.

Leah rolled her shoulders. She had changed into a bikini, even though Anna knew werewolves couldn’t maintain a tan for longer than a few hours. “Why?”

“He’s lost his temper and is pretending he can’t understand me.”

“Your accent _is_ terrible,” Leah said, sniffing, and putting the phone to her ear as she stood up and walked off, her silky sarong trailing in her hand. “ _Hola, mi amigo. ¿Cómo estás?_ ”

At the other end of the line, Anna heard a male voice sigh. “ _Leya_ ,” the voice said with relief, “ _¡Gracias a dios!_ ”

Bran gave Anna a faint smile, as if he had only just noticed she was there, and then followed Leah across the yard.

Anna didn’t speak Spanish well enough to understand Leah’s rapid-fire speech, though it was one of the languages she was learning to give herself a break from Japanese. She picked up one of Leah’s magazines and rested it on her knees, turning the pages slowly as she watched them out of the corner of her eye. Leah was more animated, in her first language, her words accompanied by smiles and the flirtatious tilting of her head. She was spinning the sarong around with one hand as she paced in her bikini, looking athletic and golden in the sun. Bran stood to one side with his arms crossed, watching her. He looked annoyed, Anna decided. 

Leah laughed, suddenly, tilting her head back and something about this was too much for Bran because he strode towards her and pulled her flush against him, his hands low on her back.

“I have to go now, Jesus,” Leah said, in accented English, her face only an inch away from Bran’s as she stared him in the eyes. “My mate will call you later to confirm.”

Rigorously, Anna turned her attention to the magazine and studied a particularly fascinating article on how to achieve the natural look with just four essential make-up products.

*

Thanksgiving was always sombre, Bran always broken-hearted and melancholy because of those who didn’t survive the Change. It was part of Anna’s responsibility now to try to help the few who had successfully Changed, to help them come to peace with their wolves. It was a difficult month for her, as well. They were both excused from Thanksgiving preparations.

The only thing that kept Anna truly from sinking into her misery was that Charles had spoken to the Cuyahoga Valley Alpha who said the teenage daughter of one of the humans adjacent to his pack was pregnant and wanted to give the baby up for adoption. And was it true that Charles and his mate were looking to adopt?

That, and her own personal soap opera was being enacted in front of her own eyes.

“Stop it,” Charles whispered, fixing his eyes on the football on TV that he was not remotely interested in.

“They have gone into that laundry room _four times_ in the last hour,” she retorted. From the angle of the couch she was lying on, under a blanket, she could see through the kitchen to the doorway of the laundry, the door of which was currently closed.

Bran and Leah were making out in there. She knew it.

She nudged Charles and waggled her eyebrows at him. He exaggeratedly collapsed back onto the couch.

Sam came in through the sliding doors of the living area, bringing with him a gust of cold air. He wiped his feet on the mat. His face was twisted with unhappiness and he _radiated_ disapproval. “Da’s having sex with Leah in the laundry,” he said at their curious expressions.

Anna cackled as Charles mimicked his brother’s expression, twice-fold. “Told you!” she crowed.

*

Something bad happened, in between Thanksgiving and Christmas because a glacial chill settled on the main house between its two occupants. That chill inevitably spread through the pack bonds, unsettling everyone.

“Mommy and Daddy are fighting,” Asil sing-songed, as she and Kara assisted him with his roses. And, by ‘assisted’, they mostly stood by obediently waiting for instruction on what to prune and how to do it.

“Do you know what about?” Anna’s eyes slid to Kara, who was listening intently but trying to keep a low profile.

“No. I was hoping you might.”

She pursed her lips. She had thought Asil’s invitation to join him in his hothouse suspect. “I’m afraid not. Charles and I were away whenever it happened.”

Kara, surprisingly, piped up. “I think it’s about the pictures.”

Both adult werewolves turned to her.

“What pictures?” Anna thought, helplessly thinking of the photos she had found of Asil and Sage, all those months ago.

“On Instagram. Leah’s deleted her account.” She shrugged. “I thought it might be related.”

“What’s Instagram?” Asil asked.

“It’s a social media thing. Leah has an Instagram?” Anna didn’t personally use social media but she was aware of it. More specifically she was aware that Charles was concerned about how much the werewolf population was publishing online about their lives.

“She did. I followed her. She took really nice pictures.”

Kara pulled her cell from her back pocket, the only other place it resided other than her hand. She scrolled around and turned it to show Anna, who squinted at the screen. “Leah took these?” Anna said. Every photograph was like a capsule of drama – some in black and white, some in full, blinding color. Mountains and treescapes and shadows and shimmering light.

“Let me see,” Asil said, taking the cell from a reluctant Kara and grunting. “I’ll give it to her – they’re not bad.”

“I think they’re beautiful,” Kara muttered.

“And she deleted her account? When?”

“A couple of weeks ago.”

That tallied. “Could be a coincidence,” Asil said, flicking through the photos and making Kara visibly nervous. He stopped. “What’s this? Is this a boy? Do I know this boy? I don’t know this boy.”

Kara shrieked. “Asil!”

*

“I know,” Charles said, when she told him as they were preparing dinner. She was peeling potatoes and he was demonstrating his superior knife skills by julienning carrots. There was a stew in the oven; it smelled amazing.

“What!”

“I only found out today.” He shook his head, long stands of his dark hair escaping down his cheeks. “I honestly cannot believe it has caused this big of an argument.”

“What happened?”

“We published some guidelines for social media last month. Essentially a ten-point list of recommendations for those who are public and also for those werewolves who are still not out. Things like, make sure your account is private, no political statements, make sure you have permission of everyone in any photos to post them.”

Anna nodded; sounded sensible.

“One of the rules was, obviously, _don’t publish pictures of werewolves_.”

She snorted. “Unfortunate that one needed to be said.”

Charles grunted. He had previously expressed his views on the decline of common sense in the modern world. “Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, someone anonymously sent a screenshot of an Instagram account to Da’s email.” Anna closed her eyes, seeing where this was going. “Yes, _Leah’s_ Instagram account. In this photo there was an image of what Da thought was a werewolf. The picture was posted after we sent out the guidelines.”

__

She groaned. “Oh, no, really?”

__

“Apparently they had a screaming row. Words were said that couldn’t be taken back. They’re not speaking. Incidentally, Da’s now pretty sure it _is_ a dog, one of Bert’s.” Bert had a couple of Malamutes for the very reason that they were frequently used as an ‘excuse’ for any wolf sightings.

__

“They genuinely had a fight over a photo of a dog.”

__

“Da’s always said Caesar’s wife should be above suspicion,” Charles said, on a sigh. 

__

“Didn’t Caesar say that shortly before he divorced her?” Anna mused, leaning over to steal a carrot. “Has he said sorry?”

__

“No. And he won’t. They don’t apologize to each other. I think he’s also hurt that he had no idea she took pictures. Most of the North American wolves followed her, apparently, as well as a few from the European packs. It’s like she had a whole other life he didn’t know about.”

__

Anna could understand that but, then, she also suspected Bran kept plenty from Leah, too. Pot kettle, so to speak. “They’re really good pictures.”

__

Charles agreed, his face lifted with surprise. He tossed the carrots into the pan and drizzled over some honey. “The one with the not-wolf was stunning. It would probably be tasteless of me to ask for a copy, wouldn’t it?”

__

Anna grinned. “Probably.”

__

*

__

They missed most of January because Charles took her to Japan, claiming it would be an opportunity for her to test out her extremely basic Japanese in ‘real’ situations. She tried, she really did, but more often than not, the extremely friendly Japanese would go above and beyond to try to communicate to her in English when her faltering attempts baffled them.

__

From Japan, they flew to Indonesia, spending a week in total luxury in Bali and then Lombok where they barely left the bed, then city breaks exploring Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, before finally flying home. It was the furthest Anna had ever travelled and she felt like her eyes had been opened. She spent the journey home, wired, going through the in-flight magazine looking at other locations they could visit. The rest of Asia – Vietnam, Thailand. Cambodia. Europe, of course. What about South America? The Middle East?

__

“I guess I know what to get you for your birthday now,” Charles said, looking over the table between their seats in First Class. She raised her eyebrows questioningly and he smiled. “The world.”

__

Charles, who hated flying, crashed as soon as they got home but Anna wanted to distribute all the souvenirs they’d brought. “Go do that,” he said, kissing her as he headed up to bed.

__

“You shouldn’t sleep! You’ll be ruined for this time zone,” she told him, recognising she was fighting a losing battle.

__

For most of the pack, she had bought strange flavored Japanese confectionary but for a few select people she’d spent more thought. She dropped off a _tsuko-tegata_ for Asil, some _omamori_ to Kara. For Bran she had a little cat with a waving arm – a _maneki neko_ – and for Leah she had a set of chopsticks. She saved these for last, driving up to the main house with some trepidation.

__

She let herself into the house and saw Leah first, curled up on the couch with a hot drink and a book.

__

“Hey,” she said, smiling.

__

Leah put her book down. Anna thought she might have looked a little pleased to see her. “You’re back.”

__

Anna approached, gifts in her arms, but when she got close, she felt a pull at the part of her that was Omega. “Oh, _Leah_ ,” she said, putting down the presents.

__

“It’s fine,” Leah said, almost scrabbling out of her seat to escape her as Anna neared.

__

“It’s not.” She hugged her. Leah resisted. Then she didn’t. “Are you still fighting?”

__

Leah drew back and flicked her hand at Anna so she would step out of her personal space. She tucked herself back into the corner of the couch, cradling her drink. “It may have got out of hand.”

__

“No kidding. Is he here?”

__

Leah shook her head.

__

“What do you normally do to get yourself out of a fight?” If apologizing was out of the question, Anna added to herself.

__

Anna was treated to a ‘you know what and if you don’t you’re stupid’ look. She blushed. “Ah. Has that… not worked?”

__

The other woman was uncomfortable and, unlike most, Leah displayed this by staring Anna down aggressively. “Neither of us have tried it.”

__

She rolled her eyes. Dominants and pride. Of course. “And now it’s gone on too long.” She dropped back down onto the couch. “Ugh. This is so annoying. Just when it was getting _so much better_.”

__

“I _know_ ,” Leah sighed and, for a brief moment, they were utterly in sync. Then she seemed to realise what Anna had said and her eyes narrowed into two chips of ice. “What do you mean by ‘so much better’?”

__

Anna got up, hurriedly. “Let me give you your present.”

__

*

__

Anna’s conversation with her father-in-law went about as well as expected. “Why don’t you just say sorry?”

__

“None of your business,” Bran said and, really, he was apoplectically angry with her for bringing it up. Worse than when they’d had those arguments about Charles. His anger beat down on her, like a physical thing: _whomp, whomp, whomp._

__

She pressed her lips together, pushing back. But it wasn’t her business, it really wasn’t. “Fine then,” she said, through her teeth, imbuing her voice with her disbelief. “I’m sure you know best. Here’s your present.”

__

Anna thrust the carefully wrapped gift box to him and his eyes softened slightly. “Thank you,” he said, touching the bow. The corner of his mouth quirked.

__

As he unwrapped it, a thought occurred to her. “Is it dangerous?” she asked.

__

Something dark flickered in Bran’s hazel eyes. “It’s just a fight, Anna. It will be fine.”

__

*

__

Blearily, Anna sat up, suddenly alert. “What was—“

__

“Leah,” Charles said, shortly, already out of bed. “Take the car – I’ll meet you there. Try to get hold of Da.”

__

Anna threw on yesterday’s clothes and ran down the stairs, grabbing the car keys and the cell phone charging in the hall. She didn’t stop to put on shoes and ran bare-foot across the gravel. The pack bonds were screaming with the ineffable, prickly flavor that was Leah. Charles had already Changed; she could feel him running towards the main house.

__

She pulled out of their drive and called Bran’s cell. “Pick up, pick up, pick up,” she muttered, navigating her way through the winding roads that linked the houses in Aspen Creek.

__

Leah drew down on the bonds again, making Anna gasp and veer sharply in the road and then, just as suddenly as it began, it was over. Leah’s presence folded in on itself, drew back. Anna hung up on Bran.

__

Turning into the drive of the main house, Anna braked abruptly and flung the car into park. Every light in the house was on and the front door was broken, half split, hanging from one hinge. She climbed out of the car and, quietly, listening intently, she made her way through the house. 

__

A naked woman, Leah, was sitting on the edge of the decking outside, shivering. Charles, dressed once again, was crouched in front of the body of a large grey-and-black-speckled wolf. “He was my friend,” Leah was saying.

__

Anna stopped trying to be stealthy and instead started to make noise. Never a good idea to surprise dominant werewolves after a fight. She picked up the blanket folded over the back of the couch. Leah didn’t jump when she draped it over her, nor did she acknowledge Anna in any way; her eyes were fixed on the body before them.

__

“Are you okay?” Anna asked, easing down to sit next to Leah, not quite touching. 

__

Charles assessed his step-mother critically. “You’re bleeding. Will you let Anna look at you?”

__

“It’s not life threatening,” Leah said, which wasn’t a ‘no’ but equally wasn’t a ‘yes’.

__

Anna used her nose and eyes, following the trickle of blood that was pooling around Leah’s right foot. “Would be good to clean and bandage it, maybe,” she suggested, as if it was something Leah could take or leave should she want to, and Anna herself had no opinion on it. She sniffed disinterestedly and looked at Charles.

__

_Did you get hold of Da?_ he asked her.

__

She shook her head. _Cell phone just kept ringing_. There wasn’t a chance in hell that Bran would have slept through his mate’s call for help.

__

Leah stood up and wobbled. Anna caught her elbow. “I want to bury him,” she said, urgently. “He was my friend.”

__

Anna’s heart broke a little and she put her arm around Leah. “We will.”

__

Charles’s eyes flashed at Anna. _We can’t. Not until Da’s here. This is the Alpha of the Guadalupe Mountains pack. She killed him. This is a big problem._

__

Up until that moment, Anna had thought Charles had killed him. Not that she didn’t think Leah was capable, she had just assumed because the wolf was male and because of the way Leah was behaving. _Way to go feminism_ , she thought. “Wait, Guadalupe? Texas? Isn’t Bran—?”

__

“Yes,” Leah said, wrapping the blanket more tightly around herself and stepped out of Anna’s half-embrace. “Jesus is supposed to be facilitating his discussions with the South American alphas.”

__

Anna knew about this. Knew this was a big deal, had been meticulously planned for months. She looked at the wolf. Jesus, the man Leah had once flirted with on the phone. A prickle of unease made itself known. “We need to find Bran,” she said.

__

*

__

Charles flew out with Asil first thing in the morning, both outwardly projecting absolute calm. Tag started the process of replacing the front door of the main house, whilst Anna went around cleaning up broken glass and attempting to straighten the mess that was made when Jesus Rodriguez de Leon had burst through the Marrok’s front door and gone straight for his mate.

__

She hosed down the blood from the decking and patio, whilst Leah watched.

__

“You missed a bit there,” her mother-in-law said, critically, pointing.

__

Tempted, briefly, to spray her with the hose, Anna instead meekly did as she was instructed. Leah hadn’t said very much and what she had said had mostly been sharp rebukes over things Anna, or Tag, were doing to be helpful. Leah didn’t deal with her own emotions very well, Anna concluded. She was also probably worried about Bran.

__

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Anna said.

__

“I’m sure,” Leah said, going back into the house.

__

Anna wound the hose up and went to try to make the grass look a little better. Claws had turned up chunks of turf and she pushed what she could back in, helplessly picturing a battle she hadn’t witnessed. The grey wolf, Jesus, had been at least twice the size of Leah. Bran had always been complimentary about Leah’s fighting skills, something that Charles had re-iterated. _Doesn’t draw it out,_ Charles had said, once, begrudgingly. _Kills quickly, with minimum effort_.

__

It didn’t look as if this fight had been effortless, Anna thought, sadly. She thought of Leah’s small voice, repeating _He was my friend_ over and over.

__

*

__

They were having a tense dinner when Leah dropped her fork suddenly and closed her eyes. “There you are,” she said, out loud, with such a strong sense of relief that it could only have been about Bran.

__

Anna didn’t feel anything different but trusted Bran’s mate would know better. Her cell phone started to ring. “Charles?” she said, answering, meeting the other woman’s eyes.

__

“He’s fine,” Charles’s voice mirrored the relief in Leah’s. “He’s here. He’s not making a lot of sense but he’s alive.”

__

“What did they do?”

__

“Pumped him full of ketamine and silver. A lot.” Charles’s tone said that if Bran had been a normal werewolf they would be having a very different conversation. 

__

Anna felt a flare of alarm from across the table, quickly muted. “What about the pack?”

__

“Decimated. By which I mean, there’s evidence that Jesus has been culling them long before we got here, as well as Bran’s own attempts to free himself. There’s a submissive and a couple of newly Changed but that’s it. Asil’s out, making sure we’ve not missed anyone.”

__

Leah cleared her throat. “His mate. Jimena.”

__

“No sign of her. No sign of any women in the house, actually.”

__

This gave Leah pause, then she picked up her fork and started eating. “Bring him home, Charles,” she told her step-son.

__

*

__

Leah spent the night and the following morning furiously cooking, which mystified Anna until Charles drew up outside the house and Bran got out of the car. Bran was _thin_.

__

Bran brushed his knuckles across her face as he passed her. “I’m fine,” he said. He touched the fresh door to his home and walked inside, where Leah was waiting.

__

Charles kissed Anna hello – once, twice, then a third for luck. “He really is fine,” he said, at her look. “He didn't want to divert the energy of the pack so just burned his own getting rid of the silver and it wiped him out.”

__

She climbed into the passenger seat of the truck, put on her seatbelt. “It just seems so unlikely.”

__

“Apparently, he knew something was up,” Charles said, starting the engine and turning his head to reverse down the drive. “He just thought he’d play it out, see where it went. Not knowing that the entire point was to trap him down there whilst Jesus made his way here.”

__

“So it was about Leah? Not Bran?”

__

“A little of both, I think. Jesus and Leah go back a long way, by all accounts. Used to court, before she met Da. What the submissive told us was that Jesus was not happy with Bran’s encroachment on Southern America as he has always seen himself as ‘unofficially’ in charge.”

__

Anna had known that. It was part of the reason the negotiations had taken months. Bran had wanted to ensure Jesus was involved and the intention was to give Jesus a more formal responsibility, rather than Bran just extend his own remit and stretch himself - and them - impossibly thin. “What about his pack?”

__

“We found the body of his mate. He’d killed her. There were a few other bodies, I suspect they died trying to defend her.”

__

“Was he mad, then?”

__

“If he wasn’t before he killed his mate, he was after,” Charles said, as they pulled up in front of their house. He sighed. “It’s really good to be home.”

__

*

__

“Oh, you’ll like this,” Charles added sleepily, late that night, “apparently _Leya_ is descended from Spanish royalty.”

__

Anna lifted her head. Charles had been very thorough in his attentions and she was feeling comfortably limp as a noodle but this, this was _gold_ , and worth waking up from her sleepy post-lovemaking haze. “Noooooo.”

__

He grunted. “Her father was _not pleased_ when she eloped with – and these are Da’s words - a ‘Welsh peasant’ and so he disowned her.”

__

Knowing that this information wouldn’t have been something that Bran would have volunteered, which meant Charles had asked specifically for her, made Anna cuddle Charles’s arm. “This is amazing. Thank you.”

__

"You're welcome. Weirdly, Da seemed pleased that I was interested."

__

Anna’s phone _bleeped_. “Sorry, I had it on Loud from earlier,” she said, scrabbling to pick it up. They didn’t normally bring their cell phones into the bedroom but the last couple of days had been exceptional. She looked at the message. “It’s from Kara. She says Leah has reactivated her Instagram account.”

__

“I’m so happy for you both,” Charles said, utterly disinterested.

__

Anna, smiling, put her phone away and curled herself against the warm body of her husband. _Better_ , she thought.  
  


__

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I re-used the bank thing from another work. Don't judge me :-/
> 
> And this one also probably fails the Bechdel test.


End file.
